


Compromised

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Caring Dad Regis, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Papa Titus Drautos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:36:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22536370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx had never questioned his loyalties, but a revelation puts him in a position where his loyalties have been compromised. Now he's tasked with spying on the Crown Prince of Lucis and has choices to make.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Nyx Ulric
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

Being taken alive had never even crossed his mind. 

Being dragged from the field— ears ringing and disoriented from the explosion that had thrown him from his feet and into the writhing mechanical mass of MTs— had never even entered into his wildest thoughts. The battle, already so one-sided, had always seemed like a scenario for total loss. Nyx had always thought he would either limp from the battle with the rest of his squad, or he would die in a bloody heap. 

He had never thought he would be cuffed to a chair in some metal container, head spinning while metal faces and the red glow of eyes focused on him. He could feel the heavy uniform clinging to his skin around the bleeding wounds. He couldn’t quite blink away the blood seeping from what he assumed was the least of his injuries, but he could still see the red eyes and those metal, identical faces in the dark of the container. It was too hot and cold at the same time, the slumped shadows of others strapped to the holding container’s built-in seats could barely be seen for the shadow and dark. Nyx wanted to shiver, but he couldn’t move for the pain and stiff coldness holding him fast in the cuffs that kept him in place. 

The Nif-manufactured gloom barely more than a suffocating box after the heat and chaos of the battle. 

The Kingsglaive training had never even covered the possibility of being taken alive. 

Nyx felt the burn of his borrowed magic still coursing through his veins. A low, slow burn that he could feel seeping free with his blood. Still, he started to call it forward— the low, broken burn in his palm threatening to spark and rush across his skin without the direction of free movement. 

The dark was illuminated for a moment by the rebellious conjured sparks, and an MT snapped to attention with a rifle raised. 

Pain cracked behind his eyes before the world collapsed around him. 

“Always the rebel, Ulric.”

The voice grated across the pain pulsing through his head. It echoed and rattled around with the shock of recognition. 

“You know me, Captain, trouble is my middle name.”

He tried to offer a cheeky smile as he managed to lift his head. He hoped he smiled. The shock would be better masked by a grin rather than the grimace he feared ruined the effect he wanted. Ruined the confidence he was trying to bolster in the face of betrayal. Dull the shock and surprise cast across him with the bulky shadow of Captain Drautos. 

Nyx did grimace at the glare of light reflected in the sleek Niflheim armour the Captain was wearing. The sharp edges and smooth surface a swirl of dark ice reflecting the slump of the other Glaives still held as he was who hadn’t made it past their initial capture. He glanced at them— the recruit he had bought a drink before they had their orders, the veteran who had always seemed so aloof and distant to him, the young mage who had clung to Crowe’s side the night before they left the safety of the city— their uniforms and armour gashed and burned, lifelessly slumped forward. 

He steeled himself to meet the Captain’s eyes; “What’s the plan, Captain?”

He spat the title forward, the surprise accepted quickly enough to twist to disgust in his chest. He did grimace then, he knew. The low burn flaring to blinding anger; “Hearth and home? Need someone to dig the shallow graves out here? Or are we getting a funeral pyre? What’s the Nif tradition? You’d know better than me, sir.”

Drautos seemed to heave an exasperated sigh. It was such a normal, everyday gesture that Nyx was shocked to see it. 

“Ulric, you always were too smart for your own good.” Drautos crouched to meet Nyx’s eyes on his level, the sleek Nif armour melting away and seeping into whatever carrier Nyx couldn’t see or sense. It moved like the ichor of the Scourge to Nyx’s eye— disease spreading like a tide— and twisted his stomach. Though he supposed that could have been the concussion. “I have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition.”

“A job, Ulric. If you’re smart enough to take it.”

Nyx decided— hours after the agreement was dragged from his throat, wrenched from his lips by his own hubris— that he was an idiot. Drautos promised him safe passage and movement back through to Lucis. He was promised a return to duty— set to guard rounds in the Citadel with his injuries raised as an explanation. He was promised that those waiting for him in Galahd would not be harmed— the Captain holding the small pile of pictures for him to see clearly once he was cleaned up enough to not be blinking through blood. He was promised many things that made his gut twist and his heart ache— the familiar, sad smile of his mother drawing the agreement from him even as tried to think of the oaths he had sworn to the King with kind eyes in the Citadel. 

Hearth and home was always the first order he would obey. 

His mother was in occupied Galahd. The Nifs knew him. 

“She’s safe,” Drautos assured him. “Everyone you left behind is safe. So long as you’re smart, Ulric.”

“I will kill you, Captain.” It was only fair to make a promise of his own in the light of the situation. 

He decided— as he was released from the restraints and dragged to a medic to be cleaned up enough to be sent back with a plausible story— that he was an idiot.


	2. Chapter 2

It almost seemed as nothing had happened. He was returned to Lucis with Drautos; tales of a narrow escape burned into his mind through the rigorous planning stages that followed the agreement and deal with proverbial devil he felt he had made. The debrief sessions had been short, the medics curt as they handed him off to the care of his friends, the Citadel authorities so disinterested in a narrow escape from the cusp of death that he was dismissed without half of the planned details coming to light. His little apartment welcomed him home with spoilt food he had forgotten to clear out before he left, and the rattle of the windows as the traffic on the streets outside peaked every morning and night. 

He returned to work as Drautos ordered. The ease of the guard routine a familiar and light way to keep him away from trouble. Away from the front lines where he had been the most useful. 

No Lucian official spoke to him, noticed him, commented on the bandages peeking from beneath his uniform sleeves or the stitches above his eye where he had been gashed. No one in their proper suits and hurried steps paid him any attention. 

And he could only wish that he didn’t feel the resentment burning away in his throat. The bitter, clawing sensation that they had no idea of the reality of the war with Niflheim. The gag that he was forced to wear because Drautos was careful in what information he was fed— who might turn him in as a traitor to either side. The Citadel halls only echoed his frustration back at him with every mismatched step— the limp still noticeable if only just because of the stiff brace on his knee over the uniform— and every quiet hour ticking away. The night shifts were the easiest to stew in his own anger; impotent rage that could only vent on the training fields which he was still forbidden from by doctor’s orders. The shadow closing in around him as he paced the halls on his route, begging for the sickly light of dawn through the Wall. 

It was weeks before he would even see the Captain again.

A morning shift that would stretch through to the early afternoon, when the bulk of the King’s duties took place in the grand receiving chambers rather than the confines of the royal study or a sterile conference room. When he was usually set to a quiet place to watch the sun rising over the peaks of the city stretching so far below the Citadel heights. He had settled into the routine easily, stony faced as the morning staff rushed to their stations, his expectations set by weeks of trudging, begrudging routine. 

“Sir Ulric,” came the familiar voice of the King. The fatherly timbre and warmth almost seeping through the cold white rage Nyx had let curdle in his stomach. He bowed as the King approached; “how are you? Titus had said you were badly injured.”

The Captain towered behind the King, the calculating chill Nyx had seen in the Nif container was gone. Drautos had almost a warm look about him, a hand on the Crown Prince’s shoulder as he guided Noctis from his father’s side. “I’ll see Prince Noctis to the conference room, Majesty, before he gets distracted again.”

“Yes, of course.” No one seemed to notice the roll of the Prince’s eyes at the gesture and suggestion that he would make a break for it before whatever meeting he was to attend started. 

Nyx realized that the King was still waiting on a response; “I’m fine, Majesty. Healing up and eager to get back to normal.”

There was a small chuckle followed by a pat to his uninjured arm— a familiarity he had forgotten the King favoured at times— before King Regis carried on his own way to the conference the Prince was dragging his feet on. The Royal Shield emerged from the study in his wake and offered Nyx a nod of approval before following his King like the shadow he had been trained to be. Nyx hesitated before resuming his route, watching the procession until they turned a corner toward the secured elevator that would bring them from the royal apartments. 

He almost wished he had the courage to follow them as if it was part of his routine. To trail after the Captain, or quietly corner the King to give a proper report. 

To see the smile that Drautos drew from the Prince as he leaned down and offered to create a distraction if Noctis wanted to make a break for it. To see the way the Captain’s tone shifted to a paternal warmth as he made some comment or another while the King was focused on the information his Shield presented about the meeting. 

Instead, he returned to his patrols. He glanced at the study as he passed the heavy wooden door again; the door had been left ajar, the rich wood of the desk and shelves shining as the rising sun was caught in the polished surface. With a glance back to the corridor, Nyx pulled the door closed until he heard the satisfying click of the closure before he could catch a glimpse of something he shouldn’t. The halls remained silent as he returned to his routine. 

Later, Nyx wondered if he would have seen the wedge being driven in when no one else was watching. 

He wondered if he would have acted any differently.


	3. Chapter 3

“Look after the Prince while I’m away.”

The order came as a surprise weeks after a mind-numbing routine. Nyx had almost started to let himself hope that Drautos had only wanted his silence after the revelation of his allegiance. It had been easy to pretend that the medical orders had been legitimate and that he had been dragged from the battlefield to the correct side the first time around. It was easy to slip back into habits with his friends— his family— with after shift drinks and bad food without thinking too hard about who may be on what side. 

He was certain Libertus and Crowe were with the Lucians, neither would have taken the threats or coercion easily. Neither would have just settled with the idea of being called on by a double agent, or spent long hours in the night over thinking the implications of what he could be called on to do. Pelna, Nyx knew, kept his loyalties close— he had admired the Nif technology he could retrieve and tinker with, but there was no question that was the extent of his interest. The others— Luche, Tredd, Axis, Sonitus— Nyx had no idea. He couldn’t tell who would have been approached when, or how, or if there were others in the forces who were working to undermine the King. 

Who were just waiting for orders like he was. 

“That an order, sir?”

“Yes,” Drautos hadn’t given him more to go on. There was a timeline— a week, maybe two— but no reason for it. There was no formal reassignment, but there had been a backlog of mail delivered to his little apartment. A care package that had been delayed, correspondence that had been resealed with “Niflheim Customs and Control” tape with their red and white coat of arms blazoned across each seam. Three small parcels of letters had been tied together, the rest came with the parcel and a delivery slip. It had all come in a rush, with little explanation for the delay.

But Nyx had known why. 

He settled into a new routine with the new order. The quiet halls of the Citadel were traded for the busy streets of Insomnia. He settled at cafe tables across from arcades with magazines and notepads filled with doodles. He watched the aloof and distant Crown Prince of Lucis smiling with a cheerful and chipper blond citizen. He trailed half a block behind the Crown Prince as he laughed and shared strange treats and convenience store treasures with his equally boisterous Shield as they wandered the bright evening streets to theatres and restaurants and parks. He saw the Crown Prince of Lucis picking through market stalls with his friends, making faces as the adviser Nyx had only ever seen stalking the Citadel halls in suits offered up fruits and spices. 

Nyx had to smile at the small glimpses of the Prince without the formal trappings of the Citadel weighed over him. 

It was easier to follow orders when they were in the training rooms. When Nyx had an excuse to watch the Prince from the shade of the sidelines. When the Shield and Sonitus tried to weigh out weapons while the Prince shielded his eyes from the sun and drew lines in the dirt with the tip of a training sword. 

He didn’t know what had possessed him to step into the dusty court with them. 

But the Prince had looked up with big blue eyes and offered a little smile in greeting. “Sir Ulric.”

“Highness,” Nyx greeted in return; “thought you might like some variety.”

Under the watchful eye of the Shield he offered one of his kukri with a confident smile, flipping it carefully in his hand for the Prince to take the carved handle. It was an offer to be closer. An offer to step closer. He had liked seeing the Prince smile; it had been real, honest. 

Nyx liked the idea of seeing something honest for a change. 

Training was honest. There was no masking the way a foot would slip in the dust, or the scraps and bruises when they fell or brushes against the crumbling stone pillars. There was no way to fake the call of crystalline magic that let them rush from one point to another in a warp that left the world spinning and breaking apart. The strain and sweat was something that couldn’t be faked— the ringing of the blades, the pointers called out by the Shield— not as the ache started to set in with one wrong stumble or slip. 

He caught Noctis as they mistimed a set. They tossed the blades aside in a safety measure that had been drilled into them for years. It left Nyx’s arms open for the fall. He twisted and fell first, putting himself between the hard ground and the Prince. The pain that shot through his should dimmed the world for a moment. But the way the Prince was shaking in his arms nearly sent him into a panic before he mind caught up with the noise around him and he realized that Noctis was laughing. 

Prince Noctis was in his arms and laughing at the clumsy end to the training session. 

The younger man rolled off to the ground, hand on his stomach as Nyx sat up. “We need to do that again, Sir Ulric.”

“Maybe drop the ‘sir’, Highness?” Nyx didn’t realize that he was grinning until he realized that it was matched by the Prince. He was seeing those smiles he had seen from a distance for a week. Those bright eyes, that playful smile, the utter honesty in the expression he had only seen from a half-block distance. 

“Only if you drop the ‘highness’ too.”

“Consider it dropped.” The Shield laughed as he pulled Noctis to his feet, and Nyx smiled as he collected his blades. “When’s your next training session?”

It was the Shield who answered; “Day after tomorrow. Same time, if you’re volunteering, Ulric.”

Noctis nodded, breathless and red while he was pushed into his cool down stretches by his Shield’ careful hands. “You’re better than this meathead.”

“High praise,” the blades were sheathed, and Nyx nods his agreement. “Consider me volunteering.”

The next time he had settled down at a cafe across from a familiar arcade, Noctis brought his chipper friend over for a drink with him.


End file.
